Blind X-Men & Button Mashing Brilliance: Gable Meade

Penn Street and Moses Street welcome guest Gable Mead for a Facebook Live “podcast time travel” conversation recorded in July 2025 but airing during the holidays. They open with a story about a blind child interviewing her parents and use it as a springboard into how fear and misconceptions fade when people learn blindness skills firsthand. Gable shares his vision-loss story (bilateral retinoblastoma, gradual loss of remaining vision, and later choosing a prosthetic for comfort), plus what it’s like living with vivid “phantom vision” effects and how that can impact sleep. From there, the conversation shifts into blind gaming—how Gable transitioned into fighting games, competes in-person, and helped build a strong community of blind gamers. Gable explains the Cento Showdown (a Mortal Kombat tournament for blind/low-vision players) and his extensive accessibility work: long-form visual/cosmetic guides created with AI image descriptions, then carefully verified and rewritten to reduce errors and hallucinations. He also shares his day job as an educational braillist, how he found it after a discouraging job search, and why the work is unexpectedly fulfilling. The episode closes with encouragement around kindness (especially toward yourself), plus where to follow Gable and find his work. Contact Info Guest / Project Cento Showdown: @CentoShowdown (Twitter/X), thecentoshowdown.com Gable Mead: @BlindsightBlue (social), Twitch: BlindsightBlue Aftersight Email: feedback@aftersight.org Phone: (720) 712-8856 Produced by: Jonathan Price (Aftersight) Show Credits Show: The Blind Chick (An Aftersight Original Podcast) Hosts: Penn Street, Moses Street Guest: Gable Mead Producer: Jonathan Price Chapter Markers 00:00 — Cold open + “podcast time travel” (Facebook Live) 02:22 — NPR story: fear fades when you learn the skills 04:35 — “X-Men” analogy + trauma, adaptation, and senses 07:02 — Gable’s story: retinoblastoma, vision loss timeline 11:40 — Phantom vision and sleep disruption 16:26 — Prosthetics as art (custom colors, identity, and fit) 22:10 — Imagining people + building mental pictures 24:33 — Blind gaming: why fighting games work (audio + mind games) 29:13 — “Real job?” + why gaming stays a hobby 31:35 — The massive MK1 cosmetics guide (scope + structure) 36:28 — AI limits: verification process and rewriting for accuracy 43:30 — Becoming a braillist + barriers in job searching 47:56 — Why the braillist role is fulfilling (and surprising) 54:41 — Last words: kindness, self-compassion, perseverance 57:07 — Creating a new game? Writing dreams (Spider-Man aspiration) 59:19 — Wrap + where to find Cento Showdown and BlindsightBlue